FuturTech 2008 at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

The Next Small Thing in Energy: Distributed Generation
Energy is following computing in a transition from centralized to distributed production. From wind generators to geothermal and solar power, smart grid technology will facilitate this shift away from locally-sourced power. What is the potential for distributed energy generation, and what challenges lie ahead?

The Evolution of Mobile Platforms
Mobile platforms have undergone significant changes in recent years. The market launch of Google's Android and the release of Symbian to the open source community has introduced open source to mobile platforms. Meanwhile, other platform providers like RIM, Apple, Microsoft and Palm continue to upgrade their products. Will one platform paradigm dominate the mobile world, or can multiple models coexist?
This panel will explore:

How Technology Has Transformed Community Engagement for the Millennial Generation
How does the development of new technologies result in social change? There is a new generation of people whose use of technology has transformed the way in which they engage with the greater community. Civic engagement is no longer just volunteering at a soup kitchen. Civic engagement is more and more about changing behaviors and beliefs through platforms of technology.

Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital in a recession. How are technology startups affected?
Many have suggested plans to turn around the economy by massive investment in big ticket items like Wind and Solar farms and IT infrastructure. However, the heart of America's entrepreneurial culture lies with the individual entrepreneur. In this panel we aim to draw upon the collective experiences of the panelists who work in diverse fields to discuss trends in technology and how its innovative application can lead to big impact. Will investing in "The Next Small Thing" be our way into the future? What role does venture capital play in today's tight credit market and what trends in technology do investors see?

Enterprise Web 2.0
Business social software market is expected to grow to $3.3 billion by 2011. How are organizations planning for the adoption of these tools? How are they making the ROI case? How will the adoption of these tools change organizations?

Is Personalized Medicine the Future of Healthcare?
Personalized medicine is the concept that information about a patient's genotype or gene expression profile could be used to tailor medical care to an individual's needs. Such information could be used to help stratify disease status, select between different medications and/or tailor their dosage, provide a specific therapy for an individual's disease, or initiate a preventative measure that is particularly suited to that patient at the time of administration.

Interface & Interaction: Physical Interaction and GUI in Context
"Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus." - Steve Jobs, iPhone Introduction (2007)
The Wii and iPhone were the first products with gesture-recognition and multi-touch screens to succeed in the mass market. However, neither were first to market with these technologies. Why did Apple and Nintendo get it right?
As these input technologies continue to mature, and others such as eye-tracking and object-recognition make inroads, businesses will have to make even harder choices about interaction.
This panel explores the tension between emerging methods of physical interaction and GUI in context. When is a touch-screen the right way to go? What's holding back speech recognition? And does anyone want a stylus?